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Discussion > President Trump

Phil, I was referring to this : "The Gatestone Institute you linked is a good example, wiki describes the body as 'accused of being islamophobic, and of promoting falsehoods and paranoia'. Wiki is not per se trustworthy, but you can at least read the sources it provides - and make a judgement as to how credible you find them" 11.08am
Sorry if you felt I was misquoting you.

Feb 21, 2017 at 7:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterSupertroll

Martin A at 2.04pm.

Many thanks for the additional observations.

I'm afraid I had no joy finding the book at the library (not one library in Cumbria holds it, apparently) so will be on the look-out for it locally in bookshops etc (I don't do Amazon. I'm too old-fashioned).

Feb 21, 2017 at 7:05 PM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

Mark H - I'm not sure how you get the things you need if you don't do Amazon.

You could try this The Closing Of The Muslim Mind How Intellectual Suicide Created The Modern Islamist Crisis by Robert Reilly (pdf)

[I have no information about the legality or otherwise of the file the link leads to]

Also, this:

Incoherence of the Philosophers

[which smells legal to me]

Feb 21, 2017 at 7:38 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

O/T but a little light relief required....

How to remove a mustache The Iranian Way

Feb 21, 2017 at 7:41 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Martin A

Many thanks also for the links. I'll give them a go (assuming I can satisfy myself the first link is legit - as you say, the second one certainly looks as though it is).

So far as Amazon is concerned, I just do without stuff generally! I guess I'm too old-fashioned for my own good. I even have an 88 year old aunt who shops at Amazon regularly, but I can't quite bring myself to do it.

Feb 21, 2017 at 7:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

OK Mark. Of course you could always ask your Aunty to order it for you.

Feb 21, 2017 at 8:40 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

@Feb 21, 2017 at 4:05 PM | Unregistered CommenterSupertroll

Feb 21, 2017 at 2:04 PM Martin A. Very interesting (I somehow missed this when you posted). I have vague recollections of once knowing this, but it faded. Good to be reminded of it.

I venture to suggest that your experience might also have been caused by you not being senior enough. Middle eastern students tend to put great stock in the authority of who is instructing them.

Gosh, Alan, you do have a tendency to make unwarranted assumptions. You have no idea what my 'seniority' was at that time (I was a prof), yet you'll happily state your assumption as reality.

My experience was 'caused' by some students of Middle East origin wanting to be told what they should learn by rote, and missing the point that, without understanding the principles, they would fail the course.

Even if I had been a postgrad teaching assistant at the time, it would not have been my lowly academic status that had caused them to wish to be told what to learn by rote.

It's so easy to judge another religion, when our own is afflicted by the same problems.

"Our own"? Who is 'us'?

Assuming that you are referring to the Christian religion, you'll need to be clearer what problems in common you are referring to. A belief in the duty to kill nonbelievers? A belief that the scriptures should be learned by rote and recited but their interpretation not discussed?

You wrote " And entire populations who take the Koran as their user manual for life." Ever been to the rural south of the US and seen the well thumbed Bibles?

Well yes, having been based for a time in Atlanta and then in Charlotte, I have spent many weekends exploring rural Georgia and North Carolina, with wall to wall religion on the Sunday AM radio band.

Except for a vague implication that religions are not much different from one another, I don't know what you expect readers of your comment to infer. That what brought the Muslim world to intellectual death between 1100 and 1130 applies equally in the US Bible Belt today?

Feb 21, 2017 at 9:00 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

1300

Feb 21, 2017 at 9:21 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

Prof. Martin A. My sincere apologies. I falsely assumed that you were talking about a time when you did not have experience of dealing with Middle Eastern students and therefore were not in a senior position. I did only "venture" my opinion and accept you rebuke.

Since almost everything else I venture when discussing this subject seems to mightily offend I shall desist in imposing them upon you.

Feb 21, 2017 at 9:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterSupertroll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPtNON6sHXw

Whether you agree with it or not, it sums up the what realists... sorry, "fascists, Islamophobes, white nationalists" ((c) the progressive left) think about the Swedish issue...

Feb 22, 2017 at 7:07 AM | Unregistered CommenterAbba's granny

Virtue is its own reward, sometimes it is betrayal.
=================

Feb 22, 2017 at 9:43 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim

Rocks thrown at police, cars torched, shot(s) fired, shop windows smashed. Order restored by midnight.

Unlike the Kista riots of 2013, which persisted for 5 days.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/world/europe/sweden-riots-fifth-night/index.html

Feb 22, 2017 at 10:44 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

@PC

a link to CNN ?

"order restored by midnight"

yeah... that's convincing - I'm sure the local residents will be totally reassured by that.

The problems are being hyped - BUT - they are also being covered up.

The Swedish tradition of pragmatism has fallen victim to another Swedish tradition ->> Political Correctness gawn mad.

Feb 22, 2017 at 11:12 AM | Registered Commentertomo

a link to CNN ?

To balance the Infowars BS.

Feb 22, 2017 at 11:56 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

CNN, the Clinton News Network, soon to be so shown?

It highly amuses me that the Clinton camp promoted 'fake news' when the Democrat emails started to come out. That news wasn't fake, and the meme of 'fake news' has completely backfired upon her and hers. There was hubris, and here is nemesis.
==========

Feb 22, 2017 at 12:02 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

CNN have a mole... it would seem.

HuffPo Huffs

Could be more amusing than some YouTube blooper reels.

Feb 22, 2017 at 12:09 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Heh, ACORN 'now-shuttered'. HuffPo fake newsing about why; you've got it right there, tomo.
=============

Feb 22, 2017 at 12:14 PM | Unregistered Commenterkim

"Sweden took in a record 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015. Sexual offences declined by 13% between 2014 and 2015, to about the same rate as 2005.."

"Quite. I was referring to the whole population, over the last few years when Sweden started taking in refugees and asylum seekers in large numbers. Geronimo's comparison was between two years, 2015 and 2005, and before correction, for offences against women only. Also, during that period the legal definition of rape in Sweden was broadened, so an increase in reported offences is unsurprising. Apples and Oranges."

"Quite" indeed. You didn't say it was the whole population, but you did say it reduced by 13% between 2014 and 2015 and reached 2005 levels. In fact there was a decrease of 30% between 2013 and 2014 but rose by a staggering 70% between 2014 and 2015 caused entirely be sexual offences against women.

So apples to apples Swedish Crime Survey for the whole population rise in sexual offences rose by 87% between 2005 and 2015, it did not fall by 15%. In the same period, sexual assaults on women rose by 89%. I don't doubt that the reclassification of the sex laws had some effect on those numbers, but they are huge, and we should not play them down.

Feb 22, 2017 at 5:39 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

"it did not fall by 15%" should have read 2015 figures were not the same as 2005.

Feb 22, 2017 at 5:41 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

Indeed. The uptick in the number of women in the Crime Survey reporting themselves as exposed to sexual offences is worth investigating, even if it is large when expressed as a percentage change but still a change from a small number to a slightly less small number.

However the number of actual reported incidents tells another story. While there is an increase since 2005, the majority occurred before 2010.

In 2015, a total of 18,100 sex offences were reported; this is an 11 per cent decrease as compared with 2014. The number of rapes reported to police decreased by 12 per cent to 5,920 between 2014 and 2015. Reported offences regarding sexual molestation and sexual coercion, exploitation etc. also decreased to 8,840 (-8 %) and 1,430 (-6 %) respectively. The decrease seen in these types of offences was in turn preceeded by a rise in 2014. This can in part be explained by a number of cases that included a great many connected offences relating to rape, sexual molestation, sexual cohersion and exploitation.

In the Swedish system, individual reports regarding a great number of offences may affect and give rise to variations in the statistic. For instance, when a single case is reported that turns out to involve hundreds or even thousands of instances of offences committed against an individual over the course of many years, every single incident is recorded as an offence in the year it was reported. It is also important to remember that non-reporting is particularly extensive for sex offences and changes in the inclination to report can affect the number of rapes in the statistic.

The number of reported rape offences has increased over the last ten years (2006-2015). The increase can be partially explained by the entry into force of new sex offence legislation on 1 April 2005. This legislation entails, among other things, that certain acts which were previously classified as sexual exploitation are now classified as rape. The effect of the statutory change appeared in the statistics such that the number of reported offences in respect of sexual coercion and exploitation declined in the years immediately following the statutory change while the number of reported rapes increased. As from 1 July 2013, the sex offence legislation was again made tougher; among other things rape was expanded to include cases where the victim reacts passively.

And in both the crime survey and reported offences, for all crime there is no great surge in the years of heavy immigration.

Feb 22, 2017 at 6:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Source

https://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statistics/rape-and-sex-offences.html

And here are some interesting figures about Malmo

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/closer-look-killing-fields-sweden

Feb 22, 2017 at 7:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Clarke: So there's no problem with rape and assault in Sweden due to immigration? You believe you've proved that? Why would you want to?

Feb 22, 2017 at 9:13 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

Clarke, so I was wrong about the increase in the records of 89% increase of sexual offences of women. Why would you want to prove that? It's not wrong.

Feb 22, 2017 at 9:16 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

Clarke: So there's no problem with rape and assault in Sweden due to immigration? You believe you've proved that? Why would you want to?

I never said that; I am merely pointing out that the figures do not support the overheated rhetoric of Trump, apparently informed by a distorted piece on Fox News.There is no great immigration-fuelled crime wave.

Feb 22, 2017 at 9:38 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Clarke, so I was wrong about the increase in the records of 89% increase of sexual offences of women. 

From the Crime Survey, women exposed to sexual offences :2005 1.6%, 2014 1.8%, 2015 3.0%. So yes, an increase of 87% since 2005 and a one year jump of 66% 2014 to 2015. I don't recall disputing that. Large scale immigration began around 2012 and the uptick corresponded with the peak year of 2015. That's a correlation, even if the absolute number remains small. However it also correlates with a change in the legal definition of rape, so why you attribute all of the rise to immigrants is a mystery. Especially as the number fell by 25% in the preceding year. Were all the immigrant rapists on a gap year, or should we in fact not be too hasty in assigning significance to large percentage variations in a small number? And the trend in reported incidents appears negatively correlated, rising steadily to 2005, peaking again in 2014 and actually falling in 2015. I confess I don't understand that. Do you?

As for assault, the figures for crimes against the person show no trend overall and specifically for assault actually a steady downward trend from 2.7% in 2005 to 2.0% in 2015. Using your methodology that’s a 35% drop. Would you attribute that change entirely to the asylum seekers and refugees as well?

https://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statistics.html

Feb 22, 2017 at 10:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke